


Dreams of Death and Flying

by Calacious



Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: AU:No Capes, Anxiety, Bruce Is In Love, Comfortember, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Nightmares, Panic Attack, Somewhat Graphic Depiction of Deaths that Did not Happen, clark is a rock, kid!Jason, kid!dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27398200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: In a universe where Bruce's parents never died, Bruce never became Batman, Clark is not Superman, and Richard and Jason are adopted by Bruce at an early age, they suffer from nightmares of a universe in which loved ones died terrible deaths. Clark is the exception to the rule, and he is their rock.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996825
Comments: 20
Kudos: 135
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	Dreams of Death and Flying

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completely different universe, and mentions canon events, but as nightmares instead of reality. This is not at all canon compliant.
> 
> The prompt that I used for this Comfortember fic was: anxiety (nightmares feature as well).

He can’t breathe. It’s hot. He’s cold. And he can’t breathe. 

“Hey, easy there.” 

There’s a hand on his shoulder, in his hair, petting it.

He draws in a shuddering breath. It’s like trying to breathe in broken glass and it hurts.

“It’s okay,” the voice soothes. 

It’s not okay, though. There’s blood. On his hands. On the grimey, cracked pavement of the alleyway. On his face. In his hair.

There’s blood behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes. It’s everywhere, yet it’s not where it belongs. 

“Hey,” the voice says, and Bruce finds himself turning toward the sound of it. Low, calm, soothing. “Let’s get you up, off the ground. It can’t be too comfortable there.”

His knees are numb, he vaguely registers that they’re scuffed (he’d fallen hard when his parents fell), and each breath is hard won. It feels like his throat is on fire, and his chest feels like a deflating balloon. 

He stumbles. The hand moves from his hair to his elbow, the other on his back, keeps him steady. 

“I’ve got you,” the voice says, and Bruce forces his eyes to move from the dead, broken bodies of his parents to the owner of the voice. 

And that’s when he wakes up, sucking at air that seems to be clawing its way down into the recesses of his chest. It burns, and aches, and he’s nine years old again, unable to breathe as he kneels in a pool of his parents’ blood.

“Bruce?” 

He latches onto the groggy voice of his lover, reaches out for the hand that searches for his in the wide expanse of their king sized bed (it feels like an ocean on nights like this), clasps it to his heaving chest, and tries to remember what he’s taught young Richard Grayson and Jason Todd about how to breathe through an attack of anxiety. It’s useless, and he can’t remember his psych training, and his chest is a prison of iron, lungs seizing on nothing.

He’s pulled back against a broad chest, left ear resting just above the heart of his lover so that he can hear the beat of it. He holds on and counts the steady, unwavering beats, which are so much like his lover. It’s comforting, and he’s finally able to draw in a full breath of air.  
He feels like he’s run a marathon, and his throat is burning, but he can breathe, and Clark is right there with him, speaking nonsensical murmurings of comfort and rubbing his back, much as he remembers his mother doing when he was little and he’d had a nightmare. It’s not a comparison that he thinks Clark would object to, but it does make him seek out the picture of his parents that he keeps on the nightstand beside the bed. 

Their faces, carefree and smiling, look out at him from beneath the glass of the frame, and Clark, sensing what Bruce needs, pulls the framed photo off of the nightstand and places it in Bruce’s hand. His breathing takes on a less desperate quality, the wheezing whine settles down, and he no longer feels like he’s trying to breathe in a wind tunnel, where every breath is stolen almost as soon as it is taken.

He drinks in the look of happiness on their faces, skips over the image of his six year old self, dressed in his Sunday best, hands held in his parents’. He knows, without having to look, that the younger version of him has the same, silly smile splitting his face, and a smudge of strawberry jam on his chin, despite Alfred’s best efforts.

“Was it the dream again?” Clark asks.

Unable to find his voice, Bruce nods, traces the curve of his mother’s face with his finger. 

“I’ll take the day off,” Clark says, placing a finger over Bruce’s lips when he opens his mouth to protest. “I’ve got an advance on my next book, and I’ve already sent the first draft in to Lane Publishers. Lois has been pushing me to take some time off.”

“You don’t have to,” Bruce says, hating that, even as he says the words, he wants nothing more.

“I want to,” Clark says. “I miss your parents, too, and I’m sure the boys would love to see their grandparents.”

“More like they’ll love a chance to skip out on school,” Bruce says, chuckling. His chest doesn’t feel as tight anymore, though he rubs at it to ease some of the tension that’s still there.

Clark laughs and gives Bruce a dopey grin. “It’ll be fun,” he says. “A real family vacation. We haven’t taken one since you’ve adopted Jason.”

“Mom’ll ask if you’re ready to make an honest man of me, yet,” Bruce says. The edges of the nightmare are fading away, his chest is no longer struggling for every breath.

Clark blushes, and looks away. “Ma’s asked the same about you,” Clark says. “What do you think the boys want?”

Bruce turns so that he’s facing Clark, and snorts. “Jason asked me straight out why we weren’t married yet, and Richard left a wedding catalogue on my desk in the study.”  
“They’re not very subtle, are they?” Clark chuckles.

Bruce shakes his head. “Even Alfred’s inquired after our status.”

“Well,” Clark clears his throat. “If Alfred’s making inquiries after our status,” he says in his best imitation of the family butler’s accent. “Then, I guess I’d better make an honest man out of you sooner rather than later.”

Bruce presses a kiss to Clark’s lips, all traces of the recurring nightmare gone, when a blood-curdling scream comes from the boys’ bedroom. They both rush to the door, getting tangled along the way.

“I wonder if Jason’s had that nightmare again,” Bruce says once they both manage to untangle and successfully leave the room. 

“The one where he’s beaten to death by a clown?” Clark asks, paling.

“Dad!” Richard shouts, there’s a panicked look in his eyes and he barrels toward the both of them, latching onto their legs once he reaches them. 

“What is it, Dickie?” Bruce asks, running a hand through the boy’s sweaty hair. 

Richard’s trembling, and then crying, and Bruce knows that he’s had that terrible dream again. The one where his parents plummet to their deaths in a freak circus accident. In reality, Richard’s mother had died during childbirth, and his father had died of cancer when Richard was just three. A distant cousin of the family, it had fallen to Bruce to raise the orphaned child, and Richard had quickly won his heart. He hoists Richard into his arms and Richard sobs against his shoulder.

Jason’s standing in the doorway of the bedroom he shares with Richard, the stuffed tiger he’d gotten from Clark on his fifth birthday is dangling from the grip he has on its foot. He’s got tears in his eyes, and Clark rushes to him, pulling him up into his arms. 

“Did you have a bad dream?” he asks in a gentle voice. 

Jason nods and rests his head against Clark’s chest, much as Bruce had done earlier. They may not be related by blood, but Jason is a lot like Bruce, finding comfort in the strength that Clark exudes. 

“Can we sleep with you and Papa Clark?” Richard asks. 

Bruce exchanges a look with Clark, who nods, and they both make their way to their bedroom, boys held tightly in their arms. This is not the first night all three of them have had recurring nightmares, and Bruce fears that it won’t be the last. 

“Did you have a bad dream, too?” Richard asks through a yawn.

Bruce nods. 

“Did Papa Clark kiss it better?” Jason asks.

“He sure did,” Bruce says, smiling fondly at Clark as they settle the boys on the bed and then climb in so that the boys are nestled snug between them. 

“Does this mean you’re gonna get married now?” Jason asks, he’s looking at Clark, eyes searching his face for something, and then he smiles and snuggles up against Clark’s side, seemingly satisfied with whatever it is that he had seen on the other man’s face.

“Of course they’re gonna get married,” Richard says, poking Jason with his toes, and earning a hard glare from the younger boy. “They’re in love, and ‘sides, Papa Clark’s the only one who gets to kiss Dad’s --”

“Richard Grayson Wayne!” Bruce reprimands. He can feel his face turn red with embarrassment. 

Richard and Jason giggle. 

“I was gonna say, nose,” Richard says, giggling harder. 

“Sure you were,” Bruce says, booping Richard on the nose. 

“Did you have a nightmare too, Papa Clark?” Jason asks. 

Frowning, Clark shakes his head. 

“Did you dream you were flying again?” Richard asks, leaning forward, blue eyes glittering with excitement. 

Clark gives Bruce a sheepish look, as though he’s apologizing for being the only one of them not suffering from terrifying nightmares that recur on a regular basis. Bruce doesn’t mind that Clark seems to be exempt from them, that his dreams are of wearing a blue suit and red cape, and flying high above the clouds, like some superhero, because that’s kind of what he is to him, to Richard, to Jason. A superhero who chases away their nightmares with his calm, steadying heartbeat and gentle demeanor.

“Did you fly over the moon?” Jason asks, settling fully against Clark’s chest. 

“I did,” Clark says. 

“Did it look like Swiss cheese?” Richard asks. He’s got his head on Bruce’s chest, and he’s snuggled beneath the blankets.  
Clark shakes his head, and launches into a retelling of his dream that lulls the boys into a peaceful sleep with Bruce not far behind them. There is no doubt some embellishment to the storyteller’s tale, but that comes naturally to Clark who writes children’s books for a living, and it’s a welcome distraction from what had happened earlier that evening. Bruce can still picture his parents’ bloodied bodies, and see her white pearls stained crimson in the wake of the shooting that only ever happens in Bruce’s dreams.

“Marry me?” Bruce asks, reaching for Clark’s hand, and smiling when Clark laces their fingers together, and then draws Bruce’s hand up for a kiss. 

“Only if you’ll marry me,” Clark says. 

“Marry all of us, tomorrow,” Jason says, sleepily, and Richard murmurs something that sounds like an affirmation. 

Clark chuckles, and presses a kiss to Jason and Richard’s foreheads. “I’ll see if that can be arranged.”

“What are you thinking?” Bruce whispers. 

“First, a visit to Bristol, then to Kansas, and --”

“And then we elope,” Bruce says. “I don’t want to have the press hounding us on our wedding day.”

“But an elopement?” Clark asks, face falling.

“I suppose a small wedding on a certain farm in Kansas wouldn’t be too bad,” Bruce says by way of compromise. He can picture it -- taking his wedding vows in a grassy field, cattle lowing nearby while he and Clark say their, I do’s. It’s ideal and picturesque, and he wants nothing more than to be married on the farm where Clark grew up. 

“No press to swarm us on an old Kansas farm,” Clark says, no doubt already plotting their nuptials. 

“They’d be too worried about stepping in a cow patty to set foot on a farm,” Bruce says, smiling at the thought of one of the paparazzi vultures scowling as they trampled through cow shit just to get a sound bite or capture a picture that would be touted as something sordid and cheap.

“And Ma would chase them off with her shotgun,” Clark says in a fond voice. 

“So, this weekend, then?” Bruce asks, only half serious.

“Can I pet a cow?” Richard asks in a sleepy voice.  
“Can I?” Jason asks, he’s got one arm curled around his stuffed tiger, and the other around Clark’s arm. 

“Go to sleep, boys,” Bruce and Clark say at the same time.

“We will if you will,” Richard challenges. 

“I’ve got a ring you can give Dad, Papa,” Jason says, after a pause long enough to make Bruce think that both boys have fallen back to sleep. “It was my mom’s. She doesn’t need it anymore, and it would look real pretty on Bruce.”

“Thank you, Jay,” Clark says in a voice thick with emotion. 

Bruce is overcome by emotion as well, and he blinks back tears. Jason’s mom, an employee of Wayne Enterprises, had passed away a little over a year ago and he’d promised to take care of Jason after her passing. At the time, he hadn’t known how much he’d grow to love the boy, and see him as though he’d always been his own.

“That is very kind of you, Jaylad,” Bruce says. “But --”

“You can give my dad’s ring to Papa,” Richard chimes in before Bruce can tell Jason that he should keep the ring to give to his own bride, or husband, to be one day.

“I’d be honored to wear it, and I know your Dad would be honored to wear your mother’s ring, Jay, but we can’t ask you to give them to us,” Clark says.

“It’ll be like having a piece of them here, with us,” Jason says, clutching his stuffed tiger tighter to his chest.

“Yeah, it’ll be like they’re watching over us through you,” Richard adds, and then he’s drifting off to sleep amid a series of light snores, Jason following suit shortly after.

“How can we say no to that?” Clark asks in a whisper.

“I don’t suppose we can,” Bruce says, gazing in awe at the two little boys who’d come into his life like a whirlwind, and won their way into his heart. 

“We’ll keep them safe,” Clark says, and Bruce isn’t sure if Clark is speaking of the rings or the boys, he guesses that he’s speaking of both. 

“Yeah,” Bruce agrees, and then he’s stifling a yawn, and Clark’s eyes start to close, and before he knows it, he’s dreaming, not of his parents dying in a dirty alley, but of soaring through the clouds in a blur of red and blue, with two little boys held safely in his arms.


End file.
